YPSILANTI, MI—Dawn had just begun to break on the morning of Wednesday, March 26th, when the Bruins left their hometown of Los Angeles for the cold air and wintry landscape of Ypsilanti, Michigan. They carried with them the historic club team trophy, an award created to recognize the work of collegiate club artistic swimming teams for their hard work and dedication competing against the likes of recruited varsity athletes and, most dauntingly, even Olympic medalists. The Bruins were surprised when they first won the trophy in 2023, only their second competitive season, and grateful to have won it again last season. After enduring the challenges of a physically exhausting Western Regionals, rewriting and relearning their routines, and a marathon of spring break practices, the Bruins were prepared to give everything they had at the 2025 Collegiate National Championships in the hopes that they would return to LA with the trophy once again in hand.
After a day of practicing and getting acclimated to the unfamiliar, indoor pool space, Friday would mark the first day of competition, comprised of the technical events as well as the solo and duet finals. UCLA has historically shown strength in these events, demonstrating the athletes' commitments to constantly sharpening their technical skills. The medals they have collected in these categories in previous years have been instrumental in the overall high point competition, so it was critical that the team not break with history.
They did not disappoint. Freshman Angela Hu scored a number of points for the Bruins by entering the extraordinarily difficult, Olympian-dominated A category. In the B category, senior Katie MacDonald's final tech swim was her strongest and most powerful, reflecting the four years of effort she has spent perfecting these skills as well as the weight of competing the routine for the last time. She was rewarded with the highest technical score of her career, and the ribbon for 11th place, an incredibly satisfying way to leave the collegiate world. Along with Ariel Peterson and Karen Wang, MacDonald led the Bruins to 3rd place overall in the category, behind only varsity teams. The C category, meanwhile, saw the highest number of Bruin competitors to date. Senior Nadia Grishanina similarly commemorated her last performance of each element by showing off her mastery of the strength and stability they require, which earned her a career-high score and an impressive 4th place finish. Her duet partner Celeste Acosta followed close behind in 6th, and their combined success, bolstered by the performances of last year's D category silver medalist Rose Anderson and graduate student Olivia LeVine, earned UCLA 2nd overall in C, again just a few points behind Wheaton College's varsity program.
The same day marked another highlight for UCLA in the solo event. An intimidating category, as swimmers face the stone-faced panel of judges alone in the center of the vast pool, it takes certain bravery and courage to enter the competition. Fortunately, bravery and courage are not qualities the Bruins lack, and this season, more UCLA athletes entered this event than in any previous year. Anderson made her debut in the collegiate free routine competition after only competing in the technical events last year, as did LeVine, who this season is diving back into the sport after 11 years out of the water. Both swimmers then faced the challenge of learning and polishing whole new sets of skills, and their performances were a testament to the hours of hard work they put in all season. Hu's solo swim also marked her first free routine on the collegiate national stage, though with years of competitions in China, in addition to her recent showing at the Pan American Games as part of the United States Junior National Team under her belt, she was prepared to face the pressure. Hu's precision, inventive choreography, and musicality helped her secure 4th place—just shy of a medal and ahead of soloists from some of collegiate artistic swimming's varsity programs, it was the most impressive finish of any soloist from UCLA throughout its history. It was clear that UCLA's solos would contribute significantly to the overall high point award.
There would be one more event before the end of the first competition day. UCLA entered two duets for just the second time, displaying confidence in the athletes' ability to score well in a highly competitive category. This year, it was also a uniquely special category for the Bruins; these would be the first entrances for Acosta, Grishanina, and Peterson, and the last for the latter two and MacDonald, so making their swims count would not only be important achievements strategically, but personally. Luckily, both the pairings of MacDonald and Peterson and Acosta and Grishanina did so. Both duos swam clean, avoiding the scrutinizing eye of the technical controller panel for their performances and receiving deductions only for minor coding inconsistencies. These efforts landed them ahead of the duets from every other club team, with MacDonald and Peterson finishing in 7th and Acosta and Grishanina just behind them in 8th.
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The second competition day, Saturday, March 29th, proved a highly emotional one. It was another early morning, as the team's three seniors and their dedicated coaches all rose before dawn once again, this time to begin the grueling hair and makeup processes required of all artistic swimmers. Aside from preparing themselves physically, they also needed to make unexpected mental preparations: in light of results from the day before, they realized two of their codes were in danger of receiving attention from the technical controllers and had had to make last-minute changes to their routine. With no recourse but their own resiliency, Grishanina, MacDonald, and Peterson were determined to do everything they could to receive the highest score possible.
When they dove in to begin their routine, it was with tenacity and a lighthearted sense of fun appropriate for the music they chose. And despite a few slip-ups, not uncommon or indeed unexpected for such a high-pressure situation, they carried on for a strong finish, securing themselves an impressive 8th place.
The last event of the day, the last event of this year's Nationals, and the last event of Grishanina's, MacDonald's and Peterson's collegiate careers was the team competition. Though the efforts they had put into the preceding routines were accumulating into mental and muscle fatigue, the small-but-mighty Bruin team would be taking inspiration from the energy, choreography, and iconic music of Lady Gaga, and was excited, ready to have a fun final swim. Acosta, Grishanina, Hu, MacDonald, Peterson, and Wang opened the routine with a difficult double lift, launching Grishanina backwards into the air before supporting Wang as she balanced her flexibility with stability to rotate a full 360 degrees while standing on MacDonald's shoulder. The team would then proceed into a series of challenging hybrids, where extracting top scores from the judges would require the likes of holding off-angle balances with both legs out of the water, properly hitting the difficult "knight" position that the technical controllers watched particularly closely, and performing two different "connection" hybrids in which each of the six athletes would have to get their legs to touch each other. Moreover, their Gaga-style arm movements also needed to match despite requiring unconventional angles and hand positions. Fortunately, the Bruins had one of their strongest swims of the season, working together to achieve impressive height on all of their lifts, maintaining their intricate patterns, and not receiving a single basemark on any of their "knight" positions.
Yet even despite their successes, the team also did not receive the score they had been aiming for, putting them in a lower position than they had anticipated. While not entirely devastating, it was enough to make them begin to doubt that they would be taking home the club team trophy for a third year in a row.
Before the competition officially closed for the year, there would be the parade of athletes—in which each university would be honored for contributing to the collegiate artistic swimming space—followed by the awards ceremony. The parade concluded with the presentation of two special awards that are unique to collegiate Nationals. First, USA Artistic Swimming invited the graduating seniors who had competed this year, including UCLA's Nadia Grishanina, Katie MacDonald, and Ariel Peterson, to stand and be honored amongst the rest of collegiate artistic swimming's members of the Class of 2025. The national organization also recognized the academic achievement of Angela Hu and Ariel Peterson alongside the other student athletes who have maintained cumulative 4.0 GPAs, and the Bruins are proud of Angela and Ariel for their hard work both in and out of the pool. Though they were not announced at the ceremony in Ypsilanti, USA Artistic Swimming would later confer two more honors on two members of the Bruin team for their individual point contributions: Katie MacDonald and Angela Hu received the All-Collegiate Award, and Hu was further named an All-American athlete. Finally, the Bruins were called up to accept their technical, solo, duet, trio, and team awards, often proud to be standing next to Olympians, including Paris 2024 silver medalists Megumi Field, Audrey Kwon, Calista Liu, Ruby Remati, and Keana Hunter.
With the conclusion of the individual routine awards, it was time to announce the overall high point institution award. When the first varsity team was called, the Bruins feared they might not make the cut. They had known it would be close; the club team competition had been especially fierce, and though the Bruins would never back down from a challenge, they had also worked exceptionally hard over the course of the academic year, through early mornings, late nights, blinding sun, chilling rain, wildfires, flood warnings, rule changes at the beginning of the year, and choreography changes just the night before. Though their final swim was rewarding in its own right, a high-point award would be an extra confidence boost, a needed one after some of the scores they had just received.
Then, the announcer called the next team: UCLA! It was official: for the third year in a row, UCLA Artistic Swimming scored enough points to be named the top club team in the country. The athletes, their coaches, and their community could not be more proud when they boarded their plane back to Los Angeles, club team trophy once again safely in hand.
The Bruins would like to congratulate Stanford University on their overall high point win and thank the University of Michigan for hosting this competition.
They would also like to extend the highest gratitude to their coaches, all of whom are volunteers and dedicate so much of their time, on and off the pool deck, to helping this team succeed. UCLA Artistic Swimming would not be where it is without Audra Arbas, Elodie Bardon, Jenni Beckwith, Claire Kim, Olga Molotilova, and Karen Rosolowski, all of whom helped the team tackle the technical aspects of the sport, coached the swimmers to improve their skills and endurance, provided motivation and advice to tackle competition stress, and have generally been the kindest, most caring, most beautiful human beings the team could ask for.
And lastly, the Bruins would like to congratulate their own graduating seniors, team captain Katie MacDonald, Ariel Peterson, and Nadia Grishanina. MacDonald represented UCLA in all four of its competitive seasons, consistently scoring points for the team with her mastery of the artistic impression judging category in addition to bringing exceptional skill to the sport. Peterson contributed a silver medal to the team's hardware in her first season and has continued to be an important team player since, taking on new challenges every year, including administrative tasks, allowing her to enthusiastically learn the ins and outs of a changing sport. And Grishanina, in just two seasons with the team, has been a vital addition, excelling technically, approaching every practice with dedication and intention, and demonstrating incredible versatility, between increasing her competition routine entrances from just one in her first year to three in her last and jumping into the role of flyer when the team needed one. The team will not be the same without them.
The three seniors will swim their winning routines one final time alongside the rest of the team for UCLA Artistic Swimming's annual spring show on May 18th, which will take place at home at Spieker Aquatics Center.
